a rant on education

Another Monday afternoon and I'm in the process of putting off writing a paper that is due in 2 hours. I've written three papers supporting my philosophy of education now, and the fourth one just seems superfluous. I will get it done...at least I keep telling myself that.

Is it bad that I am one year away from being a licensed educator and still procrastinate like a fifteen year old boy? Ok, so I'm not even going to bother answering that question.

I guess I just have a lot of issues with the way we are taught to teach. I'm discovering so many problems with the current model of "good" education. There's so much focus on "being a team player" and "giving everyone have equal opportunities to learn"...but many don't realize that creating "equal" opportunities to learn also penalizes some and gives others unfair advantages...there will never be a completely fair way to educate all children in a single setting because of the variety of learning styles and developmental differences.

I also take issue with the whole "let's group the kids and have them work together as a team for every project" approach. For one, not everything in life is a "team" effort and two, not everyone appreciates being thrown in with a new group every time something comes up. Maybe I just had bad experiences or maybe I'm just abnormal, but as one of the "good" kids throughout my educational experience (meaning, I generally got good grades, showed up for class, did my homework, etc...), I always resented when a teacher would pair me with a "bad" kid in an attempt to have me model "good" behavior for the bad kid. I learned very quickly that if I wanted a good grade out of the pairing, I'd have to do everything myself...and hey, Badkid certainly didn't care and the teacher felt good, because she had one less bad grade to give Badkid and one less bad grade for Badkid's parents to complain about. It was highly irritating. For instance, I remember preparing an entire presentation on George Washington (visual aid, 10 page paper, speech) by myself because my partner wanted to ditch school to be with her boyfriend. She showed up on presentation day just in time for me to hand her her part of the speech, which she read...we both got As.

I'm not saying that educators should abandon the group approach...there is a time and place for it in the classroom and it can be a useful way of getting everyone involved and creating a peer-driven learning environment (I have employed group learning projects in the classroom myself), but to lean on the group approach because it "prepares students for the 'real world'" is a bunch of bull. You learn to interact with peers in a number of ways both in and outside of the classroom. If you haven't learned how to interact with those around you and pull your share of the load by the time you get a job, you're pretty much out of luck and it's not because you didn't have enough peer-to-peer interaction time in school. It's sheer immaturity.

And I won't even bother getting into the lazy parent or standardized test issues...

The problem is, in order to get a job in education, you have to be pro-group learning, pro-equal opportunity learning, pro-this, pro-that and honestly, all of the issues end up contradicting each other.

For example, if I pull the group learning card out all the time, there are going to be some kids in my class screwing off while all the others do their share of the work. Is that equal opportunity learning? Heck, no. For one, Mr. Screwoff is not only going to distract himself, he's going to do everything in his power to make sure that he's not the only one screwing off so when I confront him about his actions, he can point to Sammy Smith sitting across from him and say, "He's doing it too." In this scenario, Mr. Screwoff and Sammy Smith are clearly not learning, and when I confront Mr. Screwoff, and he decides to make a scene, no one in the group is doing any learning.

It's all just a big, nasty circle. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there has to be balance to everything done in the classroom. I can't be an authoritative teacher all the time (Not many modern kids are going to do much learning with a militaristic approach in the classroom.), and I can't be a Perennialist teacher all the time (Who wants to sit through Aristotle and Latin for 9 months?). But there is a combination of all the types of teaching that must be achieved and with it, a certain amout of flexibility and willingness to work with the students one's been given. It's a balancing act that requires frequent reflection and adjustment of teaching practices. The goal of education should be "so that all may learn" not "that all will learn"...I guarantee that not everyone who graduates high school will have achieved the school's intended learning outcomes (they may have passed a couple tests, but no real learning has taken place, and those kids are just fine with the choices they've made), but if I give everyone an opportunity to learn, if I've done my part to make sure that every kid in my classroom was given an opportunity to learn and be taught, and if I create a nurturing learning environment that allows for sincere questioning and discussion, then I will have done my part to reach those who would be educated.

And I guess, that pretty much sums up my philosophy on education. Do you think my professor would accept this blog in lieu of my paper? (Just kidding! LOL!)